scholarly journals Fostering Sustainable Development through Shifting Toward Rural Areas and Digitalization—The Case of Romanian Universities

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4020
Author(s):  
Maria-Floriana Popescu ◽  
Bogdan-Cristian Chiripuci ◽  
Andreea Orîndaru ◽  
Marius Constantin ◽  
Albert Scrieciu

Educational institutions, especially universities, have been major pillars in societal transformation throughout society’s history. They have been leading change through their discoveries, research results, and foremost, their example. Nowadays, universities have once again taken the role of leading change in a world that is profoundly determined to have a sustainable approach to life, paying attention to the long-term effects of their actions. In this sense, under the impact of deep digitalization, this paper advocates for the sustainable development of universities regarding campuses’ expansion to rural areas. Moreover, it was demonstrated that sustainable development can be achieved by embracing the potential of digitalization. Based on a multicriteria analysis of the Romanian development regions, the research results showed that the rural area might be a welcoming environment for campuses of sustainable universities, based on digitalization at the level of the rural area in all activity fields, which is an initiative that would generate positive outcomes on many levels for different types of stakeholders, such as universities, students, staff, rural area population, and the nearby business environment. Future research aims to approach and explain the compounded effects of such an approach in depth and establish an even clearer picture of how beneficial such an expansion could prove to all factors considered under a knowledge-based society with digitized information as a vital pillar.

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uzma Hafeez ◽  
Waqar Akbar

Employees are major assets of every organization. The accomplishment of the industry depends on its employee performance. Therefore, upper management knows the significance of expense in training for the advantage of improving employee performance and also places them to get the challenges of the today’s competitive business environment. This research also aims to see the “Impact of Training on Employee Performance in Pharmaceutical Industry in Karachi Pakistan”, in which Training consider as independent whereas dependent variable ‘Employee Performance‘ having its Performance areas i.e.; demonstrating team work, communication skill, customer service, interpersonal relationship and reduced absenteeism and its Developments areas i.e.; job-satisfaction, employee motivation, new technologies, efficiencies in process and innovation in strategies as its levers. The paper presents a concise summary of the literature on the value of training in improving the performance of the employees. Four pharmaceutical companies are selected. A survey of 356 employees via self administrated questionnaire with the help of random sampling technique is conducted with the response rate of 96%. Two sets of hypothesis are developed which relate directly to the research questions. SPSS 19 is used to perform reliability, descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. The analysis shows a positive significant relationship between them and the results reveal that the more the employee gets training, the more efficient their level of performance would be. The last section of the paper concludes along with recommendation to give guidelines for future research.


Author(s):  
Wan Nur Syahida Wan Ismail ◽  
Mohd Zulkifli Mokhtar ◽  
Azwadi Ali ◽  
Mohd Shaari Abdul Rahman

Nowadays, competition is everywhere in the business environment. The survival of Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) depend on their ability to take full advantage of the resources available. Prior research had identified that IT is an important resource to the success of the firms. However, despite the common consensus that IT influences firm’s performance, results of previous studies on the effect of IT resources on firm’s performance are often inconsistent. Given these inconsistent results, it is unclear whether any direct effect exists between IT resources in organizations and their firm’s performance. For that reason, several authors highlighted the need for more research to investigate the impact of IT adoption on the firm’s performance. In response to this, this conceptual paper attempts to analyze relevant literatures on whether IT investment would help firms gain better performance. Understanding whether and how IT has affected firm’s performance is an important research issue as it allows the firms to know the value of IT investment and whether such innovation is worth to be adopted. Grounding in RBV theory, this study concluded that the combination of IT assets and IT capabilities (IT infrastructure) provides competitive advantage to the firm. This study also suggested that SMEs that adopt IT would perform better than those that do not adopt IT. This conceptual analysis is hoped to consolidate the body of knowledge in the area and significant to the researchers as it directs to the hypotheses development for future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 82-91
Author(s):  
Mykola Gennadiyovych Nikolaev

Purpose – to analyze strategic company management in the digital business environment. Design/Method/Approach. General scientific methods are applied: systematization, comparison, generalization, analysis, and synthesis. Findings. The essence of strategic management and its significance to a company has been analyzed. The relationship between strategic company management and digital business environment has been elucidated. Basic trends for doing business in the digital environment have been defined. Theoretical implications. Theoretical significance of the research is in the advancement of opinion on the strategic company management in digital business environment. Practical implications. The practical value of the research is in the possibility of applying the results obtained by both international and domestic companies for strategic management in the digital business environment that emerged as a result of the Fourth industrial revolution. Originality/Value. The main trends of modern business in the digital environment have been identified. The choice of strategies of multinational companies has been identified, as well as the areas of their application in digital business environment. Research limitations/Future research. The prospects for further research are to study the strategic management of international companies and analyze the impact of digital business environment on their development. Paper type – theoretical.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9619
Author(s):  
Natasa Djalic ◽  
Milan Nikolic ◽  
Mihalj Bakator ◽  
Zivko Erceg

The necessity for sustainable development, the coronavirus pandemic, and conducting business within the frameworks of the fourth industrial revolution—Industry 4.0 create a challenging environment where enterprises have difficulties to achieve and maintain competitiveness. Information is becoming a core construct when it comes to conducting business in the modern, globalized business environment. In this paper, the influence of information systems (IS) on sustainable business performance and competitiveness is analyzed. Additionally, the influence of human resource management (HRM) and decision making (DM) on sustainable business performance and competitiveness, as two crucial constructs in the new paradigm of conducting business, are addressed. The relations are discussed from the aspect of sustainable development and future post-pandemic business trends. The main goal is to determine the relations between the noted constructs in a transitional setting. In sum, 184 manufacturing enterprises from Republika Srpska were surveyed via a structured survey, where the focus was on quantifying and modeling the influence of IS, HRM, and DM on sustainable business performance. The results indicate that IS, HRM, DM can affect business performance in a transitional economic setting. This approach is novel, as the existing body of literature does not address all the noted influencing factors on sustainable business performance and competitiveness in a transition economy. Hence, this paper significantly contributes to the existing body of literature and provides a solid basis for future research in this domain.


2012 ◽  
pp. 500-521 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Rainey

This chapter presents the foundations of a conceptual model for connecting the key elements necessary for corporations to adopt sustainability in the context of the global economy and strategic innovation. While there are numerous theories and practical methods for managing in a national or even regional markets, most of them lack the sophistication necessary for leading change in a global business environment. With the advent of globalization, the complexities of doing business on a global basis have increased dramatically over the last two decades. While sustainability involves many perspectives, strategies, actions, and management constructs, the chapter focuses on how global corporations employ strategic innovations in response to the driving forces in the global economy and how they can improve their level of management sophistication in a turbulent business environment. The model incorporates the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development in creating the solutions, systems and structures for doing business in the global economy. It focuses on strategic innovations that provide more positive aspects and fewer negative ones. Sustainability and sustainable development are based on proactive strategies and actions that exceed expectations and outperform peers and competitors alike. Strategic innovations are dramatic changes that have the potential to create dramatic new solutions that create exceptional value and eliminate or reduce negative effects and impacts. Strategic innovations include radical technological innovations, business model innovations, product developments, and organizational developments that are game changers.


2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 53-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Tian ◽  
Douglas Vogel ◽  
Jian Ma ◽  
Jibao Gu

In the first decade of the 21st century, China’s Research Community (CRC) is struggling to achieve better performance by increasing growth in knowledge quantity (e.g., publications), but has failed to generate sound growth in knowledge quality (e.g., citations). An innovative E-government project, Internet-based Science Information System (ISIS), was applied nationwide in 2003 with a variety of embedded incentives. The system has been well received and supports the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) to implement managerial control to cope with pressing demands relating to China’s research productivity. This paper explores the impact of Information Systems (IS) from the perspective of agency theory based on CRC empirical results. Since the nationwide application of ISIS in 2003, CRC outcomes have markedly improved. The discussion and directions for future research examine implications of IS for E-government implementation and business environment building in developing countries.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 2052 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinyang Deng ◽  
Jian Li

Although much research on nature-based tourism (NBT) has been conducted in natural areas, such as national parks and other protected areas, studies on NBT in rural areas have been limited. Moreover, few NBT studies, if any, have examined the impact of seasons and/or locations on visitors’ perceptions of NBT. This comes as little surprise, given that naturalness, the fundamental core of NBT, is likely to vary with seasons and locations. To this end, this study examines NBT in a rural area in the Appalachian Region, USA, with a focus on market segmentation, based on data collected from a four-season on-site survey of 2692 visitors. Different from many other tourism market studies where multiple-item measures are used, this study uses a single-item measure on natural observation/study to identify NBT segments. Analysis of variance, Chi-square analysis, and discriminant analysis are used to confirm NBT segments and determine the effectiveness of the use of the single-item approach for segmentation. The results show that the single-item approach is effective to differentiate visitors by their socio-demographics and trip characteristics, with findings being consistent with NBT studies in natural areas. It is worth noting that people’s responses to questions on natural observation/study vary with seasons and locations, suggesting that different perceptions of natural affinity may arise from the differences in seasons and locations with different levels of natural elements. Theoretical, methodological, and managerial implications are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathanaël Betti ◽  
Gerrit Sarens

Purpose This paper aims to gain an in-depth understanding of how the internal audit function evolves in an increasingly digitalised business environment. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on 29 semi-structured interviews with members of management committees and internal auditors based in Belgium. Findings The analysis reveals that a digitalised business environment affects the internal audit function in three respects. First, it impacts its scope. The agility of the internal audit planning and the required digital knowledge are expected to increase and information technology (IT) risks gain importance, especially cybersecurity threats. Second, the demand for consulting activities performed by internal auditors is higher and third, digitalisation modifies the working practices of internal auditors in their day-to-day tasks. New technologies such as data analytics tools are being implemented progressively in internal audit departments and digital skills are considered a critical asset. Research limitations/implications This research was conducted in the European Union and gathers opinions of members of management committees and internal auditors. Future research could focus on other internal auditing stakeholders in other legal contexts. Practical implications The internal audit function needs to integrate IT and data analytics skills. In addition, the internal audit function should develop consulting activities to help organisations deal with the digitalisation of the business environment. Originality/value The impact of digitalisation on the internal audit function and its effect on internal audit practices is an underexplored area.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (01) ◽  
pp. 078-083
Author(s):  
Manikandan Srinivasan ◽  
Mahendra M. Reddy ◽  
Sonali Sarkar ◽  
Vikas Menon

Abstract Background The burden of common mental disorders (CMDs) which includes depression, anxiety, and stress-related disorders are on the rise in India. Women in rural areas form one of the high-risk groups with respect to CMDs due to their compromised status of living. Objective The aim of the study was to estimate the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress, and the predictors to depression among women in rural Puducherry. Methods A community-based, cross-sectional study was performed in 2016, among women aged 18 to 59 years, residing in the rural area of Puducherry. Prevalence of CMDs was determined using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS)-21. Using a systematic random sampling method, women were interviewed in their houses. The socio-demographic characteristics along with risk factors for depression were captured using a semi-structured proforma. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to determine the predictors of depression. Results A total of 301 women were surveyed and their mean age (SD) was 34.9 (10.2) years. The prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress was found to be 15% (95% CI: 11.3–19.3), 10.6% (95% CI: 7.5–14.5), and 5% (95% CI: 3–8), respectively. Multivariable analysis identified that lesser education and living separately/divorced to be significant predictors for depression in these women. Conclusion About one in six adult women living in a rural area was found to be depressed, which is considerably high. This emphasizes the need for screening among women for common mental disorders in primary care settings, especially in rural areas so that early diagnoses happen and thus reduce the impact due to mental disability.


2020 ◽  
pp. injuryprev-2019-043534 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Aldred ◽  
Rob Johnson ◽  
Christopher Jackson ◽  
James Woodcock

BackgroundMost analysis of road injuries examines the risk experienced by people using different modes of transport, for instance, pedestrian fatalities per-head or per-km. A small but growing field analyses the impact that the use of different transport modes has on other road users, for instance, injuries to others per-km driven.MethodsThis paper moves the analysis of risk posed to others forward by comparing six different vehicular modes, separating road types (major vs minor roads in urban vs rural settings). The comparison of risk posed by men and women for all these modes is also novel.ResultsPer-vehicle kilometre, buses and lorries pose much the highest risk to others, while cycles pose the lowest. Motorcycles pose a substantially higher per-km risk to others than cars. The fatality risk posed by cars or vans to ORUs per km is higher in rural areas. Risk posed is generally higher on major roads, although not in the case of lorries, suggesting a link to higher speeds. Men pose higher per-km risk to others than women for all modes except buses, as well as being over-represented among users of the most dangerous vehicles.ConclusionsFuture research should examine more settings, adjust for spatial and temporal confounders, or examine how infrastructure or route characteristics affect risk posed to others. Although for most victims the other vehicle involved is a car, results suggest policy-makers should also seek to reduce disproportionate risks posed by the more dangerous vehicles, for instance, by discouraging motorcycling. Finally, given higher risk posed to others by men across five of six modes analysed, policy-makers should consider how to reduce persistent large gender imbalances in jobs involving driving.


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